Zabulon sighed and said, “All right. I’ve been thinking it was time to tighten their rein myself. I had asked the secretary of the community to keep an eye on the Saushkins… They proved to be a rotten little family.”

“I ought to have insisted on seven years,” said Gesar. “You agreed to five too easily.”

“But what’s to be done now, we’ve already agreed,” said Zabulon, puffing out a cloud of smoke. He turned to me. “Anton, did you come to see Gennady after Kostya was killed?”

“No,” I answered.

“But why didn’t you? As an old friend and neighbor…ai-ai-ai…”

I didn’t answer. Eight years earlier I would have blown my top.

“We’ve decided this matter,” said Gesar. He frowned as he looked out into the corridor, where they had started carrying out the bodies. The whole entrance and stairway had been put under a light spell that completely removed any desire the inhabitants of the building might have had to peek out their doors or look out their windows. But then, in view of the fact that no one had come to see what the woman from my old apartment was screeching about, people around here must all be exceptionally incurious anyway.

It kept getting harder and harder for me to love them. I had to do something about that.

“What else?” Zabulon asked. “As far as help in catching Saushkin is concerned, there’s no problem. My watchmen are already out hunting for him. Only, I’m afraid they might not deliver him in one piece…”

“You’re not looking too well, Zabulon,” Gesar suddenly said. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and wash your hands and face.”

“Really?” Zabulon asked curiously. “Well, since you insist…”

He got up and then halted in the doorway for a moment to make way for two watchmen who were carrying along a half-decomposed corpse in a plastic sack. Apart from blood, there’s a lot of water in a human body. If you leave a bloodless body to rot inside a plastic cocoon, the result is extremely unpleasant.

Zabulon, however, was not appalled by the sight.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, letting the remains pass. Then he strode cheerfully off to the bathroom.

“Were there women as well?” Gesar asked.

“Yes,” Olga replied curtly.

Gesar didn’t ask any more questions. Apparently even our boss’s iron nerves had given way.

That night the lads who were carrying out the bodies would get totally juiced. And although it was a breach of the rules, I wouldn’t try to stop them. I’d sooner go out on patrol duty myself.

Zabulon came back a minute later. His face was wet.

“The towel’s dirty; I’ll dry off like this,” he said with a smile. “Well?”

“Your opinion?” Gesar asked.

“I had this friend once, she liked to draw a Christmas tree on the mirror with toothpaste for the festive season. And the words ‘Happy New Year’ and little numbers.”

“Very funny,” Gesar said fastidiously. “Have you heard anything about such an organization?”

“About a ‘Last Watch’?” Zabulon asked, clearly emphasizing the capital letters in his intonation. “My dear enemy, even among the Dark Ones there are any number of sects, groups, and mere clubs that I have never heard of. But there are some that I have heard of. And the names that you come across! ‘Children of the Night,’ ‘Watchmen of the Full Moon,’ ‘Sons of the Wind.’ And, by the way, I recall one group of children-human children, not Others-who love to play at vampires. Perhaps we ought to bring them here? To make them realize that a vampire is not really an imposing gentleman in a black cloak who lures maidens into an ancient castle? It’s not that gothic at all…”

“Zabulon, have you heard anything about the Last Watch?”

“No.”

“Gorodetsky has suggested”-Gesar paused and looked at me-“that it’s what the three Others who tried to get their hands on the artifact in Edinburgh call themselves. The Dark One, the Inquisitor, and the Light One.”

“The Dark One is Saushkin, the Inquisitor is Edgar,” Zabulon said, nodding. “But who is the Light One?”

“I don’t know. We’ve checked all the Higher Ones; they’re clean.”

“Well, Saushkin wasn’t a Higher One…,” Zabulon said with a shrug. “Although…it’s easier for vampires. And then, what about Edgar, Gorodetsky?”

“I didn’t have time to study his aura thoroughly,” I replied. “There was a battle going on…and he was also hung with amulets from head to toe. Give me five minutes in a quiet situation, and I’ll know everything there is to know about him…”

“Nonetheless,” Zabulon insisted, “I know what happened on the Plateau of the Demons. In general terms. So tell us about it.”

“In battle he behaved like a Higher One,” I admitted after seeing Gesar nod his reluctant permission for me to reply. “There were three of us…Well two, if you don’t count Afandi, although he tried his best too. We had a set of protective amulets from Gesar, all very well chosen. But he was almost a match for us. I even think that he might have been able to continue the fight and had a chance of winning. But when Rustam left, Edgar had no reason to carry on fighting.”

“And so we have an Other who has managed to raise his level,” said Zabulon. “My dear Gesar, don’t you think that the Inquisition got hold of the Fuaran after all?”

“No,” Gesar said definitely.

“If Kostya had survived,” Zabulon said, thinking out loud, “then we might have hypothesized that he had memorized the recipes in the Fuaran. And managed to create some…er…copy of the book. Perhaps not as powerful, but still capable of raising Edgar to the Higher level. And then a Light One could have been subjected to the same procedure.”

“And then we could suspect any Light One,” Gesar summed up. “But fortunately for us, Kostya is dead and he wasn’t able to reveal the secret of the Fuaran to anyone.”

“Did he not have time to share the contents of the book with his father?”

“No,” Gesar replied firmly. “It’s a book of enchantment. You can’t retell it over the phone, you can’t photograph it.”

“What a shame, that would be such a good idea,” Zabulon said, clicking his fingers. “A little witch showed me just recently that there’s this thing in cell phones, it’s called SMS messaging. You can send a photograph over the phone!”

At first I thought Zabulon was being witty again. Speaking with such amazement about the SMS messages that little kids cheerfully send each other in class, he looked very comical.

And then I realized he was being serious. Sometimes I forget just how old they are. To Zabulon, a cell phone is like magic.

“Fortunately it’s not possible,” said Gesar, returning to the question at hand. “He could have memorized something and reproduced it…but no, that’s nonsense. Even that’s impossible. The nature of a vampire is different from the nature of a witch. Only an experienced witch could re-create the Fuaran, even in a weaker form…”

I looked at Gesar and asked, “Tell me, Boris Ignatievich…can a witch become a Light One?”

The happiest moments in the life of parents of a small child in Russia are from a quarter to nine until nine o’clock in the evening. Fifteen minutes of happiness while the child joyfully watches advertisements for yogurt and chocolate (even though that in itself is a bad thing) and then his or her eyes are glued to Piggy, Crow, Stepashka, and the other characters in the program Good Night, Kiddies.

If only the people who allocate time for children’s programs on TV sat with their own children in the evening, instead of dumping them on highly trained nannies, then Good Night would last half an hour. Or an hour.

And, by the way, extending the show would be great for improving the birth rate. Fifteen minutes is not very long, whichever way you look at it. At least there would be time to drink a cup of tea in peace.

I didn’t tell Svetlana the details of what we saw in Saushkin’s flat. But she understood everything perfectly well, even from a very brief account. No, it didn’t spoil her appetite, she carried on drinking tea. We had seen plenty of worse things in the Watch. But of course, she turned a bit gloomy.